Hope in her Eyes
by gingerlizard91
Summary: Here's a what-if: what if Grissom and Sara had met YEARS before the Harvard seminar?


Title: Hope in her Eyes

Rating: PG

Summary: Here's a what-if: what if Grissom and Sara had met each other _years_ before the Harvard seminar?

Disclaimer: Damn. I can't even own a seven-year-old Sara and twenty-two-year-old Grissom.

A/N: I just got this idea for a fic about half an hour before I wrote it. I thought it would be kinda cute . :) Okay, so what I wrote in here isn't exactly consistent with what's written on the bios, but...oh well!

::::::::::July 13th, 1979::::::::::

The entire house shook with the sound of someone running through it. The annoying pounding stopped suddenly, and Ann looked up from the cutting board to see who it was. Like she didn't know, anyway.  
  
A little girl appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Her freckled face lit up as she asked, "Mommy? Can I go down to the beach?"  
  
Ann looked at the clock above her head. It was four 'o' clock in the afternoon. "Sure, honey, just make sure you come back before six 'o' clock. You have your watch on?"  
  
The girl beamed as she held out her wrist, adorned with a Mickey Mouse watch ticking away silently.  
  
Ann ruffled the little girl's hair as she ran into the dinging room, grabbed her blue purse, and sprinted out the back door.  
  
"Bye, Mommy!" she shouted before the door slammed shut. Ann smiled and put her face in her hand.  
  
What a curious little girl I've raised, she thought.  
  
Outside on the blacktop of the street, a seven-year-old Sara Sidle walked with a spring in her step down the long road to the ocean. She swung her purse around, the one she often used to collect what the sea left behind. Sara began to skip merrily, waving hi to her neighbor Mrs. Brock, and took a whiff of the sea air she could smell whenever she stepped out the door. Her shoulder-length brown hair billowed in the wind and her brown eyes were set on her course. She nervously ran her tongue over the gap between her front teeth. The kids at school had often teased her because of it, and she come home crying one day, but her mother assured that it was a special part of who she was and it was rather cute.  
  
Around five minutes later, Sara came upon the end of the street and stopped short. She left and right on the highway, as she had been taught to do, then left. When a last red T-bird had passed, Sara crossed the street and ran onto the warm sand of a strip of beach in suburban San Francisco. She was all the way to the left of the beach, and she looked to her right. The entire place was vacant. She smiled to herself and walked down closer to the lapping waves, to firmer sand, and began to pick up anything that perked her interest. She bent down a picked up a dog whelk, one that was very intact, and put it in her purse. A few steps along the beach and she found a piece of a sea urchin.  
  
Sara cocked her head and moved along the beach, finding a few pieces of sea glass: a green piece, a blue piece, and a red piece. Her mother said the red and blue pieces were harder to find, so Sara had always kept those in a jar in her room.  
  
The wind whipped at Sara, and she took her jacket from around her waist and put it on. It helped just a bit, although she still received goosebumps along her arms. She pulled the jacket tighter around her.  
  
When Sara had made it halfway down the beach, she looked up and noticed she wasn't the only one there. Funny...she was convinced she hadn't seen anyone there. There was man walking in the same direction as her, only he was carrying a large, black case, instead of a small, blue purse like her. Sara became curious, and she quickened her pace and totally forgot about finding anything. She stopped suddenly when the man bent down and picked up a lump of something. He started to examine it.  
  
Summing up all her courage, Sara breathed out and walked briskly toward him. She slowed when he was around five feet away, taking her last few steps slowly. Sara leaned over the man's shoulder.  
  
"Is that a seagull?" Sara asked. The man whirled around and stared at her with baby blue eyes, but his features softened into a smile.  
  
"Yes, it is," he said, smiling towards her.  
  
Sara leaned in a little closer and said, "Can I see it?"  
  
With a half-smile, the man pivoted to face Sara, and she too examined the seagull. It was dead, of course. The feathers looked pretty neat, only its neck was bent in an odd position. Sara reached out and touched the neck, feeling the snapped bone underneath the skin. The man pulled back just a little, astounded that she wasn't in any way disgusted.  
  
Sara frowned. "Aww...the poor seagull's neck is broken. Did someone throw a rock at it?"  
  
The young man shrugged. "I don't know." He pointed to the neck. "I do know that he had a cervical fracture and the whole body was probably paralyzed."  
  
Sara scrunched her eyebrows. "What's a cervical fracture?"  
  
"It's just when the bones in the neck break."  
  
"Oh..." Sara nodded, understanding. The man, holding the bird in both hands, set it down on the sand. He zipped open the case and took the bird in his hands again, preparing to set it down in the case.  
  
"What are you gonna do with the birdy?" Sara asked innocently.  
  
The man's jaw opened a little as he searched for words, then said, "I'm going to take it home and dissect it."  
  
"You're gonna cut it open?" Sara said with a heavy heart, knowing very well what dissecting was.  
  
The man looked to the side, thinking, and turned back to her. He smiled sweetly. "Well, I don't have to, if you don't want me to."  
  
Sara nodded. "Can I let it go out to sea?"  
  
With a bit of hesitation, the man handed the seagull to Sara. Sara took it her hands and walked down the shoreline. The man followed her.  
  
When Sara saw the shallow water, she bent down and put the seagull in it. The waves took control and the sea bird began to drift out into deeper water. Sara waved goodbye to it sadly. She turned around and came face to face with those deep blue eyes again.  
  
"Thanks," she said to the man. He smiled and nodded, and they walked back up to where the man's case was.  
  
"What's your name?" Sara asked. "You're really nice."  
  
"Gil Grissom, but you can call me Grissom."  
  
"Hmm, Grissom...that's a funny name."  
  
Grissom grinned a smile with a few crooked teeth. "I didn't have a choice of what my name was."  
  
Sara grinned also, and Grissom looked into her eyes and saw a tiny spark of curiosity, something he rarely saw in girls her age. "What's your name?" he asked.  
  
"Sara. I'm seven. Well, seven and three-quarters. I'll be eight in September."  
  
Grissom extended his hand and shook hers. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Sara. You have a very pretty name."  
  
"Thanks," she said with another gap-tooth smile. She looked at his case. "Do you always collect dead animals in there?"  
  
Grissom looked at his case. "Sometimes...I use them for experiments. I'm a coroner."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
Grissom knelt down. "Well, when a person dies and they didn't want to, when it's a crime, it's my job to open them up and see exactly _how_ they died. It helps detectives find out who killed the person."  
  
Sara's face contorted. "That's sounds a little disgusting. You go _inside _of them?"  
  
"Yes, it was disgusting the first time I had to do one, but then I got used to them."  
  
Sara nodded. She looked down at her watch and saw that it was nearing six 'o' clock. "Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go. My mommy wants me home before six." She showed him her watch.  
  
Grissom looked at it. "Hey, that's neat. Alright, well, I have to get going too." He gathered his case and slung it over his shoulder. "Bye."  
  
Sara waved. "Bye-bye." She watched Grissom walk away to a black car in the distance, but before he got far, Sara ran back over to him. "Mr. Grissom!"  
  
Grissom turned around and looked down at Sara, admiring her shining eyes. She slowly reached up and grabbed his hand. Grissom looked down at this gesture a little wide-eyed, but nonetheless he squeezed her hand.  
  
"Thanks for not taking the seagull," she said softly.  
  
Grissom smiled and came down to her eye level.  
  
"I see a light of determination and curiosity...and hope in your eyes, Sara," he whispered, covering her hand with his other one. He leaned in just a little closer to her and said, "Never lose that hope, Sara, even when things look like they won't turn out well."  
  
Sara, feeling a tear well in her eye, nodded. Grissom smiled and winked at her, and then he stood up again. With one last wave, he turned on his heel and left her on the tan sand, standing alone.  
  
She couldn't hold it back anymore. The tear fell.  
  
::::::::::Fourteen Years Later --- March 19th, 1993::::::::::  
  
When Sara Sidle opened the door to the auditorium at Harvard, she knew she had spent her one hundred and ten dollars well. The stage was set up well, with numerous pictures of crime scene photos and some crime scene tools splayed across the entire length of the stage. Sara was a little surprised to see that the only person in the auditorium was a man who looked to be in his late thirties; he was setting up the rest of the pictures.  
  
Sara approached him slowly but surely. She thought he looked rather cute, trying to stand up a few easels. When she came level with the stage, the man struggled with one easel, until it eventually fell onto the floor with a clatter. Sara dropped her books and came to his aid. She stooped down and tried to help him pick it up, but the man had already found it. He muttered a "thanks" to her, and they stood up at the same time.  
  
They locked eyes, and there was something about her that Gil Grissom recognized.  
  
Her eyes. The eyes like those that belonged to the seven-year-old he had met on the beach years ago.  
  
"Hi!" he smiled. "Thanks."  
  
Sara nodded. "You're Dr. Grissom, I presume?"  
  
Grissom said, "Yes I am, are you are...?"  
  
"Sara Sidle."  
  
_Sara...Sara...that was the name of the girl...no, no way, what are my chances of meeting her again after all these years?_  
  
Grissom shook her hand, which she had offered him. "Nice to meet you. Are you here for the seminar?"  
  
"Yeah!" She smiled.  
  
_That smile...the gap-toothed smile...  
_  
"I'm, uh, I'm gonna go sit down."  
  
"...Yeah, sure. You should get a front row seat before anyone else comes." He winked. She nodded. Sara grabbed her books again and moved them to a seat right in the middle of the first row.  
  
::::::::::Eleven Years Later --- May 20th, 2004::::::::::  
  
His warm hand gripping hers brought Sara out of her nightmare, and she looked at her supervisor's hand, his fingers slipping through hers gently.  
  
Sara put her head down. Grissom looked at her, saying, "Come on. I'll take you home."  
  
Grissom took just a moment to stare at the beautiful young woman.  
  
_I'm sure she's the one. That little girl I met in San Francisco years and years ago. Her smile...her fascination...her eyes..._  
  
The words from his own mouth came back to him for the first time in a long time.  
  
_"I see a little light of determination and curiosity...and hope in your eyes, Sara. Never lose that hope, Sara, even when things look like they won't turn out well."_

He squeezed her hand, just as he had done on the beach, and tried to transmit the message to her.  
  
_Never lose hope, Sara. That's what makes you so amazing._  
  
END


End file.
